Eretz Yisrael Time

Powered by WebAds
Sunday, May 14, 2006

In a rare moment of honesty, Dan Halutz, the IDF Chief of Staff attacked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

During a conference of the Office of Trade and Industry in Be'er Sheva, Halutz said,

"There is no reason why my children should serve, but others won't serve at all."

The reference was clearly referring to the children of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Olmert’s youngest son, Ariel, shirked his army duty entirely, while his older son is a member of Yesh Gvul, a left-wing organization that calls for soldiers to not follow orders.

There is no news of any response by PM Olmert to Chief of Staff Halutz’s rather personal attack.

It is suspected Olmert won’t respond as he previously declared he is “tired of fighting”. Presumably that also goes for his children.

10 comments:

Jerusalemcop said...

didn't you see farenheit 9/11. How many us congressmen had a child fighting in Iraq? just one.

just because someone has the ability to send other people's children to war, doesn't mean he wants his child there.

Hypocrites!!!

J.

Anonymous said...

Your best blog yet!

Son of Deer

tafka PP said...

Since when were an 18 year old's choices the responsibility of his father?

And can you please clarify, do you feel the same way about Charedi families whose sons don't serve?

Oleh Yahshan said...

Tafka,
the Charedi issue isn't as big as it used to be - in both directions.
on the one hand thanks to Netzach Yehudah (a.k.a Nachal Charedi) - we now have Charedi people going into the army and serving in Kravi units.
2nd - thanks to Netzach Yehudah - the Charedim have less of an excuse to not go into the army.

and why do I know all this - Because I spent 2 years as an officer in Netzach Yehuda, and I am very much into the insides of the ongoings of that GREAT unit.

There is no excuse today for Charedim to serve, and the country should start going after the other (Olmert's kids and his type) people that don't go to the army.

JoeSettler said...

1) Since similar numbers (not percents, but numbers) of secular and Chareidim don't serve I just find it annoying to always see people pointing fingers at the Chareidi. Yet you don't see people pointing fingers to the types of people shirking that aren't Chareidim (such as children of well-known celebrities and politicians).

2) Chareidim actually do serve, and have served even before such excellent units like Netzach Yehuda were created.

Quite a number of my Chareidi relatives did serve (and even do milluim) but they completely don't publicize that fact. In fact, I have a number of Chareidi friends that served (quietly).

3) I feel that Chareidim should serve in full force because that is an excellent way for us religious to take over that institution and fix it.

Don't you agree that another 20,000 quite religious people in the army would definitely change it over the right way?

4) Since when is the choice of an 18 the responsibility of his rabbi or family?

JoeSettler said...

Tafka:

By the way, why are you asking me if the responsibility lies with the father?

It was Chalutz that was blaming the parents of these kids (such as PM Ehud Olmert), not me. Read his quote.

"There is no reason why my children should serve, but others won't serve at all."

Eitan Ha'ahzari said...

Halutz, a moral coward himself, finally made his first appearance as chief of staff. Welcome to the political scene, Mr. Halutz.

p.s. Boogie, we still love you!

Oleh Yahshan said...

regreg,
I have to agree with you once again (2nd time this week)

I think one of the worst things we have is the politicalization of the Army. Generals shouldn't be talking about issues that do not concern them - they are not meant to epress such opinion in public. If they have issues they should tell it to thier commander - and in Halutz's case - to Mr. Peretz (god help us all).

I know this is not practical but i would like to see the army not respond to political nonesense - it helps no one.

tafka PP said...

Thanks for the info- altho
Joe- I obviously don't agree with you about "religious" being "the right way", but that's not the point here :S

I'm not sure that one can legitimately draw the conclusion that Halutz was making a personal attack on Olmert- he technically could have been referring to anyone- but it clearly makes a better story if he's having a pointed go at the PM with the peacenik wife/son. Like that's a crime...

Anyway, if you can get hold of it, there's a short film from the Sam Spiegel school you might be interested in seeing, on this subject- called "Draft."

JoeSettler said...

pp: Of course Halutz was most likely only thinking of the Chareidim as he was making his comments. It's hardly likely he was criticizing his own boss.

But that was my point.

Everyone typically singles out the Chareidim, while this entire country lives in a big glass house.

It like another story that happened.

One of the radical leftwing newspapers (perhaps Haaretz) was writing an article intending to criticize certain people in the last government.

They kept referring to the 2 ministers that never served in the army.

Everyone knew who they meant (Shas), but the problem was that the paper never considered the other 2 ministers that never served in the army:


Shimon Peres and Dalia Itzhik!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Powered by WebAds
    Follow the Muqata on Twitter
      Follow JoeSettler on Twitter
      Add to favorites Set as Homepage

      Blog Archive


      Powered by WebAds